delight
The museum turned a bad review into best-selling merch
The visitor wanted fish. The museum sold him instead.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts received a one-star review last month from a visitor who called it the "worst Aquarium Ever." The museum is not an aquarium. It has no live fish, a fact its staff knows well, given that it is a museum about whaling. Rather than argue, the museum leaned in. It printed the phrase on T-shirts, mugs and tote bags, then posted about the whole thing online. The internet responded the way the internet does when an institution refuses to take itself too seriously. The merchandise sold, the post spread, and the museum picked up a fresh round of visitors who now know exactly what they are and are not walking into. The review remains posted. The museum kept the receipt.